It’s Gameday! Red Wings vs. Hurricanes Preview:

Hey Hey Hockeytown, it’s Gameday! The Red Wings face off tonight vs. the Carolina Hurricanes at Joe Louis Arena at 7:30 PM. Tomas Vanek & Gustav Nyquist currently lead the team in points with a combined 6 goals and 8 assists. Justin Abdelkader is once again out of the lineup tonight with a lower body injury but is expected to be back Thursday night at St. Louis. Now, I know we are only a measly 6 games into the regular season, but should we be concerned about the scoreless Dylan Larkin? He is currently a -4 & leads the Red Wings forwards in penalty minutes. Personally, I feel like it’s only a matter of time. All players go through their stretches & a young, fast, and electrifying player like Larkin won’t stay scoreless forever. The only lineup change from last game is that Mrazek (2-2) with a .984 SV% will be starting between the pipes. The lines for tonight’s game are:

Forwards:

41 – 51 – 71

21 – 40 – 15

72 – 43 – 62

29 – 41 – 20

Defense:

65 – 25

52 – 53

2 – 48

Hurricanes (1-2-2) Preview:

Carolina has gotten off to a slowish start. They somehow managed to get 2 points out of their first two losses of the season by surviving the game until it got to overtime. I don’t think anyone really picked Carolina to be a “playoff team” but they’ve beaten Detroit the last 2 meetings between them, so if you’re the Red Wings you can’t sleep on the Hurricanes. Their current leading scorers are Lee Stempniak and Victor Rask with a combined 7 goals and 5 assists. Cam Ward (0-1) with a .852 SV% will be starting in net tonight for the Canes and their lines look like:

Forwards:

25 – 21 – 49

42 – 11 – 20

86 – 16 – 34

15 – 18 – 91

Defense:

74 – 27

65 – 22

5 – 14

Matchup Continued:

This is the Hurricanes final game at the historic Joe Louis Arena. They’re off to a slow start and they run into a red hot Red Wings team who has won 4 in a row. This is a critical game for both teams tonight. Detroit wants to keep pace in the standings, and if Carolina has any playoff hopes they need to start collecting all the points they can get. Tonight is a game in which I feel Detroit is the favorite to win, but you can’t sleep and drop an easy 2 points to a team like Carolina. The game tonight is on Fox Sports Detroit and puck drop is at 7:30 PM. Let’s go Red Wings!